World Trail

The World Trail crew were super fortunate to be invited along on Mt Buller’s Pygmy Possum monitoring program.

Until relatively recently the Pygmy Possum (Burramys Parvus) was thought to be extinct. It turned out however that small communities were surviving in various alpine locations. The guys at Mt Buller estimate the Pygmy Possum population within the resort area to be currently (only!) ~70 and have an extensive management plan in place to protect these resourceful little critters and their environment.

Summer weather is full force with Victoria enduring a week long heatwave with maximum temperatures pinned at 40+ degrees.

It’s pretty tough trail building down in the valley in that kind of heat. Relief comes in the form of Total Fire Ban days, during which construction work must cease. There have been a couple of Total Fire Ban days this week so it’s been a good opportunity to get out and ride.

After a couple of weeks off over Christmas it was time to head back to Mt Buller, to resume work on the resort’s new EPIC trail.

Summer weather has well and truly kicked in over the holidays – I don’t think we’ll be riding in the snow again any time soon. Luckily though the elevation takes the edge off the heat and there’s always the Delatite River to splash around in when working lower down.

2013 marked 25 years of mountain biking for me. Not that numbers mean anything when it comes down to it, but I remember thinking at the start of the year it would be cool to celebrate the occasion somehow. 2013 turned out to be a genuinely epic year of MTB!

A while back Sacred Rides asked mountain bikers around the world a simple question: Why do you ride? The answers were put together to create what I think was a fairly inspiring video.

I’ve never really been able to put why I ride into words but living and working up at Mt Buller over Summer is definitely tapping into the core of it. It’s reminded me that the heart of mountain biking really does lie in the mountains. The huge feelings of space and freedom, the views, the brutal climbs, the never ending descents plus a whole lot more.